Getting Back On

God, getting back in shape is hard.

Just after Thanksgiving, I got the worst cold I’ve ever had. In fact, it took hold in the middle of the night before a very, very important audition I had been preparing for months. They graciously rescheduled me for 5 days later and I still had absolutely no voice and could barely swallow. Missed the reschedule. Unreal. I coughed all day and all night for about 3 weeks. Thankfully by MY WEDDING DAY it was downgraded to a light tickle.

With singing and marrying to do, I grudgingly went very easy physically. Nothing for two weeks and eventually some light spinning and Dailey Method to tone for the big day. I missed the first 3 weeks of the FIRST plan I intended to use for the Oakland Half. Ughhhhhh. Is this race cursed or something?

So, the thing that’s crazy about being out of shape is that you can pretty much do what you could do before, it just feels INFINITELY HARDER. I definitely couldn’t go out and run 10 miles today (maybe I could but I wouldn’t) but I can run short distances at the paces I usually do. It just totally sucks. After missing the boat on the FIRST plan, I decided to adapt Hal Higdon’s Intermediate Half Marathon Plan. I dropped one of the five runs to avoid overuse and allow more time for cross training. For the track workouts, tempo workouts, and long runs, I’m using the paces assigned to me from the FIRST program. The Higdon plan is a bit less aggressive (five 400’s instead of frickin TWELVE) but will still be more speed work than I’ve ever done and should prepare me to run a 2:05 half (9:35/mm) on March 24th.

I’ve been in a downright crappy mood this week due to hormones, work stress, and inflated holiday body. Yesterday was my first “long run” (5 miles) since the 10k I PR’d in October. I suffered through the first three miles but eventually found my rhythm (and some sorely missed heart!) and finished strong. I saw glimmers of my marathoner self! Dailey Method was tough and awesome. By the end, I felt like myself for the first time since just after the wedding.

And here I am, writing a clunky post about it. Getting back on the blogging horse too.